Into the Real World
by Dreamtigers
Summary: Existing shouldn't be this hard.


_Well here's another bit of nothing that I'll probably end up trashing. I could call it a character sketch, but really it's just some thoughts I wrote down. I do that when I'm stuck or blocked. Anyway, hope it's the least bit entertaining to someone besides me._

_Oh, and this was from before Days, sorry Xion._

* * *

Their grasp on existence is so very tenuous. They all know it, deep down in their not-hearts. It's a bit like running, starting the day you're born, and never being able to stop. Because if you fall behind, stumble for even a moment, you'll be swallowed up by oblivion. It's so dangerously easy to just let go and become truly nothing.

The knowledge would terrify them if they could feel such a thing. Instead all they get is desperation and a lustful hunger for life. Demyx has his music, Luxord has his games—those things are alive, right? Those are things humans love. If they devote themselves to nothing else, they can almost remember what it's like to feel passion. They're almost real.

Roxas is the one true blank slate. No memories, no past feelings to draw on. He can't remember if there was any one thing he devoted himself to back when he was alive. But still, he has it too. Desperation. So, with that single-minded, impractical pragmatism that is so very Roxas, he decides to throw himself into making his own memories. He throws himself into life like he's waging a one-man war. Sometimes, when he's cutting through Heartless until he aches and bleeds from half a dozen places, he thinks he can almost feel… something. He doesn't have a word for it (or if he does he doesn't remember it), but he notices it only comes in intense situations, i.e. when he's fighting for his life, so he seeks these out as often as he can.

When there are no life-risking missions to be had, Roxas notices most of his other hard-won memories are connected to Axel. The taste of sea-salt ice cream, the colors of the sunset, the warmth of an arm on his shoulder. It's confusing: this is nothing like the buzz he gets during or right after a battle, but these are still some of the strongest "feelings" he knows. So he throws everything he is into fighting and into their bizarre "friendship," carefully constructing an identity for himself out of bits and pieces. _I think, therefore I am_.

It works out pretty well, actually. Roxas never really talks about it to Axel outright—none of them ever openly discuss that yawning, driving _hunger_—but Axel gets it anyway, understands the source of Roxas's lust for new experiences. It works out, because while Roxas believes he can solidify his grip on reality by collecting memories, Axel thinks the key is giving them away. Sure, personality and consciousness come from memories, character is formed by past experiences, blah blah blah, he didn't argue with that, but. Here's the thing. If a tree falls in a forest and no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound? If you walk into a house and leave before anyone sees you, were you ever really _there_? The part of a person that's eternal dies with their heart. Nobodies don't get a "next life." When they fade away, they're gone for good. Hence, Axel's reasoning: if you die, and no one remembers you, you might as well never have existed at all. _To be is to be perceived_. What's the point of remembering every person you've ever met if _they_ don't remember _you_? And that's why everything about Axel is calculated to attract attention, how he looks, how he talks, how he moves. He's performing, all the time, trying to impress the audience. Which, at the moment, consists of Roxas.

And that's why Axel doesn't lose patience with Roxas's eager questions about the simplest aspects of human interaction, and that's why Roxas doesn't knock Axel's teeth out the five hundredth time he says _got it memorized?_ They're both just so desperate to have _something_ to show for their time spent in the universe. And that's why it's so cruel the way they ended up, Roxas forgetting everything and Axel being forgotten.

* * *

_Credit where it's due: "I think, therefore I am" is a quote from Descartes (no, really? never would've guessed) and "to be is to be perceived" is from George Berkely. Also the title and summary are Springsteen lyrics. :D_

_Any feedback, please?_


End file.
